"On Killing"

(The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society)
-by lt. col. dave grossman
1995, 2009
A brilliant, searing book that lays to rest misconceptions about killing in war, most notably the Hollywood-fueled myth that most soldiers shoot to kill in that moment of truth...and also the notion that combat PTSD is about the fear of death. Psychiatric war casualties are about the humyn resistance to killing - the more intimate it becomes, the more we do anything to avoid it, and the harder it is to deal with the guilt and remorse. The quality of brainwashing and unit discipline soldiers experience, plus the amount of societal reinforcement they receive afterwards, can reduce psychiatric casualties profoundly.
The spark of the book came after WWII, when the military discovered that only 15-20% of riflemen where shooting to kill. Grossman's research indicates that this had always been the average. Subsequently, the army changed its training (for instance, replacing circular targets with silhouettes of humyn beings, standard practice now even for police). By Korea, 50% were shooting to kill. By Vietnam, 95%. In the past half-century, we've fought many enemies who were training old-school, which helps explain why we've usually been so brutally dominant.
PTSD isn't about the fear of death, because sailors, medics, and civilians who endure months of bombing suffer almost NO psychiatric casualties. Put any soldier "on the line" for months, and psychiatric casualties will be over 90%.
This book is a must-read. Grossman, who served as an army ranger and paratrooper before becoming a West Point psychology professor, explores what has to be in place for our killing resistance to be overcome. The statistics and personal testimony he unveils are scathing. The final section jumps to society at large, and how our children are affected by the tens of  thousands of violent deaths they're exposed to on TV and in video games. Grossman says that we're raising entire generations desensitized to violence. This has been the most criticized part of the book, as the link between TV/games and violent behavior has been "inconclusive" for decades (hmmm, conspiracy theorists take note)...but that uncertainty is finally disappearing, and researchers like grossman are being validated. Here's a brilliant, disturbing link to that effect:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-baby-scientist/201801/violent-media-and-aggressive-behavior-in-children